In general, conventional personal computer (PC) cases include the same electronic contents. These electronic contents include components such as one or more hard drives, CD-ROMs, a motherboard, peripheral cards, power supply, etc. All of these electronic components or computer parts reside in the same enclosure and utilize the same air space to cool off. In other words, in this scenario, all the electronic components are enclosed within a single air chamber, in different case formats, styles and sizes.
FIG. 1 illustrates an interior elevational view of components of a conventional computer system 10. The components of the computer system 10 include a side panel 12, a CD-ROM 14, a front fan 16, a hard drive 18, a motherboard 20, a central processing unit (CPU) 22, a rear fan 24, and a power supply 26. In most conventional computer systems, the CD-ROM 14 and the hard drive 18 are located in the front portion of the case, whereas the motherboard 22 and the power supply 26 are located in the rear portion of the case.
The air flow can vary from PC case to PC case because of the size and style of the PC case itself. Air can be forced in by the front fan 16 or the air can be pulled in through the case, via the rear fan 24. Regardless which way the air moves through the case, it is still hot or heated before it gets to the CPU 22 and electronics on the motherboard 20. This is because the hard drive 18 is in front of the motherboard 20, directional-wise from front to rear of the case. Therefore the hard drive 18 exhausts its heat directly on the motherboard 20.
FIG. 2 illustrates the air flow in the elevational view of components of the conventional computer system 10 of FIG. 1. Similar elements of FIG. 1 are omitted with reference to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 illustrates the air flow through the case. Specifically, four air flows are mentioned; an inlet air flow 3, a hard drive air flow 5, a CPU air flow 7, and an outlet air flow 9. The inlet air flow 3 moves through the front fan 16, through the hard drive 18 as hard drive air flow 5, through the CPU 22 as CPU air flow 7, and out the rear fan 24 as outlet air flow 9. Therefore, the cool air passes through and around the interior components of the computer system 10, and as the cool air passes around it becomes hot air by absorbing the heat from the interior components. A CPU fan (not shown) takes the hot air and re-circulates it by trying to cool off the CPU 22 and peripheral motherboard electronic components (not shown). Finally, the rear fan 24 removes the re-circulated hot air from the PC case of the computer system 10.
In general, motherboard manufacturers' have installed various temperature sensors (not shown) on the motherboard 20 and the CPU 22. These sensors aid in alerting the build-in hardware safeguard management about the temperature of the CPU 22 and the ambient air temperature around the motherboard 20. Once the temperature is read and collected from the sensors, then the build-in hardware safeguard management sends various commands to the cooling fans 16, 24, plugged onto the motherboard 20, and managed by the motherboard hardware management in order to act accordingly by spinning faster or slower, depending on the temperature sensor reading.
When the temperature within the casing is cool, or within certain pre-set thresholds, the cooling fans 16, 24 run slow or at a fraction of their maximum speed. When the temperature sensors detect a high temperature, then the cooling fans 16, 24 spin faster depending on the pre-set thresholds, thus trying to cool off the interior components or bring the temperature down to acceptable levels. If the temperature reaches a certain non-operational or non-acceptable pre-set threshold, the CPU 22 steps down its operating clocking speed to protect it from burning up.
Several cooling systems have been proposed by the conventional art. Specifically, the standard inexpensive cooling method to cool off electronic components within the PC case is to use variable speed fans controlled by built-in motherboard management, located in the front of the case as a front fan 16, in the rear of the case as a rear fan 24, and a CPU fan, which is attached to a heatsink directly connected to the CPU 22. In addition, there may also be a power supply fan (not shown), which is enclosed in the power supply 26 with a main purpose of cooling off the power supply 26.
However, since the conventional design is air flow inefficient and heat dissipation inefficient, heat is always building in the PC case with the use of the PC. This causes the motherboard hardware management to send commands to the fans to spin up, thus moving more air and trying to cool off the equipment. To compensate for the inefficiency of the case design, the fans spin faster, and, thus consume more power and create more noise.
Additional cooling options recommended by the conventional art include: (1) side panel opening, where manufacturers (PC or computer case) have created another opening on the side panel and installed a case fan forcing air in directly on the CPU fan. This has some positive effects on the CPU and electronic peripheral parts close to it, (2) a top opening, where manufacturers have installed an additional fan. This fan helps the rear fan(s) by removing additional hot ambient air and helps in the exchange of cooler air within the case, (3) installing liquid cooling for the CPU and the ambient air within the case, (4) creating additional vents on the side panels, and/or (5) creating additional ducts to funnel the airflow where it is most needed.
However none of these methods has eliminated the hot air from the hard drives moving over the motherboard towards the rear of the case. Consequently, it would be highly desirable to provide a computer system that provides for efficient air flow, reduces fan noise, consumes less power, and runs motherboard electronic components cooler.